s in their eyes as if
they meant to keep the words forever. An enthusiastic critic once said
of John Ruskin, "that he could discover the Apocalypse in a daisy." As
noble a discovery may be claimed for Dickens. He found all the fair
humanities blooming in the lowliest hovel. He never _put on_ the good
Samaritan: that character was native to him. Once while in this country,
on a bitter, freezing afternoon,--night coming down in a drifting
snow-storm,--he was returning with me from a long walk in the country.
The wind and baffling sleet were so furious that the street in which we
happened to be fighting our way was quite deserted; it was almost
impossible to see across it, the air was so thick with the tempest; all
conversation between us had ceased, for it was only possible to breast
the storm by devoting our whole energies to keeping on our feet; we
seemed to be walking in a different atmosphere from any we had ever
before encountered. All at once I missed Dickens from my side. What had
become of him? Had he gone down in the drift, utterly exhausted, and was
the snow burying him out of sight? Very soon the sound of his cheery
voice was heard on the other side of the way. With great difficulty,
over the piled-up snow, I struggled across the street, and there found
him lifting up, almost by main force, a blind old man who had got
bewildered by the storm, and had fallen down unnoticed, quite unable to
proceed. Dickens, a long distance away from him, with that tender,
sensitive, and penetrating vision, ever on the alert for suffering in
any form, had rushed at once to the rescue, comprehending at a glance
the situation of the sightless man. To help him to his feet and aid him
homeward in the most natural and simple way afforded Dickens such a
pleasure as only the benevolent by intuition can understand.

Throughout his life Dickens was continually receiving tributes from
those he had benefited, either by his books or by his friendship. There
is an odd and very pretty story (vouched for here as true) connected
with the influence he so widely exerted. In the winter of 1869, soon
after he came up to London to reside for a few months, he received a
letter from a man telling him that he had begun life in the most humble
way possible, and that he considered he owed his subsequent great
success and such education as he had given himself entirely to the
encouragement and cheering influence he had derived from Dickens's
books, of whic